Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 6.1 percent in October 2014 compared with October 2013, according to a monthly report from real estate data and analytics provider CoreLogic. This is the 32nd month of consecutive year-over-year increases in U.S. home prices. On a month-over-month basis, home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, rose by 0.5 percent in October 2014 compared with September 2014.
Including distressed sales, home prices rose in all 50 states in October. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia were at or within 10 percent of their home price peak. CoreLogic’s Home Price Index (HPI) reached new highs in a total of nine states: Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
Excluding distressed sales, home prices nationally increased 5.6 percent in October 2014 compared to October 2013 and 0.6 percent month over month compared to September 2014. Also excluding distressed sales, 49 states and the District of Columbia showed year-over-year home price appreciation in October, with Mississippi being the only state to experience a year-over-year decline (-1.2 percent). Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.
"Home price growth is moderating as we head into the late fall and is currently running at half the pace it was in the spring of 2014," Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic, said in a statement. "However, there are still pockets of strength, especially in several Texas markets, as well as Seattle, Denver and other markets with strong economic fundamentals."
CoreLogic predicts that U.S. home prices will increase 0.2 percent month over month from October 2014 to November 2014 and 5.1 percent from October 2014 to October 2015. Excluding distressed sales, home prices are expected to rise 0.2 percent month over month from October 2014 to November 2014 and by 4.7 percent from October 2014 to October 2015.
Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest home price appreciation were: Michigan (10.5 percent), South Dakota (10.4 percent), Montana (9.1 percent), Texas (8.7 percent) and Colorado (8.6 percent).
Excluding distressed sales, Massachusetts ranked second among all states for home price appreciation, with Bay State prices up 9.7 percent, behind only South Dakota, which was up 10.4 percent. Maine (8.4 percent), Texas (8.1 percent) and Michigan (8 percent) made up the rest of the top five.
Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI (from April 2006 to October 2014) was -8.9 percent. According to CoreLogic, Massachusetts prices excluding distressed sales are currently 2.6 below their peak.
However, all parts of the Bay State were not faring equally well in the recovery, by CoreLogic’s calculations. Ninety-four of the top 100 largest metropolitan areas as calculated by the U.S. Census showed year-over-year home price increases in October 2014, but one of the six that showed year-over-year declines was Worcester. The others were Hartford, Conn.; Greensboro-High Point, N.C.; Rochester, N.Y.; Camden, N.J. and Winston-Salem, N.C.
